VMware Carbon Black EDR Event Forwarder

Overview

The VMware Carbon Black EDR Event Forwarder is a standalone service which listens on the EDR enterprise bus and exports events (watchlist/feed hits, as well as raw endpoint events, if configured) in a normalized JSON or LEEF format. The events can be saved to a file, delivered to a network service or archived automatically to an Amazon AWS S3 bucket. These events can be consumed by any external system that accepts JSON or LEEF, including Splunk and IBM QRadar.

The list of events to collect is configurable. By default, Event Forwarder exports all feed and watchlist hits, alerts, binary notifications, and raw sensor events as JSON. You can find the configuration file for the connector at /etc/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder.conf.

Starting with version 7.1.0 of EDR, you can use the EDR web console to configure and control Event Forwarder, as long as you follow the installation and configuration steps detailed below.

Support

• View all API and integration offerings on the Developer Network along with reference documentation, video tutorials, and how-to guides.
• Use the Developer Community Forum to discuss issues and get answers from other API developers in the VMware Carbon Black Community.
• Report bugs and change requests to Carbon Black Support

Raw Sensor Events

We have seen a performance impact when exporting all raw sensor events onto the enterprise bus by setting "DatastoreBroadcastEventTypes=True" in the EDR configuration (more on this below). We do not recommend exporting all the events, and recommend that you configure -- at most -- only process and netconn events for broadcasting on the event bus.

Quickstart Guide

The cb-event-forwarder can be installed on any 64-bit Linux machine running CentOS 6.x. It can be installed on the same machine as the EDR server, or another machine. If you are forwarding a large volume of events to QRadar (for example, all file modifications and/or registry modifications), or are forwarding events from a EDR cluster, we recommend installing it on a separate machine. Otherwise, it is acceptable to install the cb-event-forwarder on the EDR server itself.

Installation

Standard RPM-based installation

To install and configure the cb-event-forwarder, perform these steps as "root" on your target Linux system. NOTE: if you plan to use the EDR console to configure and control cb-event-forwarder, then you MUST install it on the same system on which EDR is installed (in the case of a cluster installer, this means the primary node).

1. Install the CbOpenSource repository if it isn't already present:

   cd /etc/yum.repos.d
   curl -O https://opensource.carbonblack.com/release/x86_64/CbOpenSource.repo
   

2. Install the RPM via YUM:

   yum install cb-event-forwarder
   

3. If you are using EDR 7.1.0 or greater and wish to use the EDR console to configure and operate the Event Forwarder, run the following script to set the appropriate permissions needed by EDR:

   /usr/share/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-edr-fix-permissions.sh
   

Installation for EDR in docker

EDR has been available as a Dockerized install since version 7.7.0. Event Forwarder versions prior to 3.8.2 do not work with Carbon Black EDR containerized servers. A new dockerized edition of Event Forwarder is now available as of EF 3.8.2 for use with Dockerized EDR. It can be installed with this procedure:

Procedure

1. Retrieve the containerized version of Event Forwarder 3.8.4 with docker using this command:
   docker pull projects.registry.vmware.com/carbonblack/event-forwarder:3.8.4
2. Retag the downloaded Event Forwarder image using this command:
   docker tag projects.registry.vmware.com/carbonblack/event-forwarder:3.8.4 projects.registry.vmware.com/carbonblack/event-forwarder:latest
3. From the directory where the edr-docker script is installed, extract the yml file using this command:
   docker run --rm --entrypoint=/bin/cat projects.registry.vmware.com/carbonblack/event-forwarder:latest /compose.yml > event-forwarder.yml
4. Set up Carbon Black EDR to control Event Forwarder. Edit data/config/cb.conf and add the following values:
   EventForwarderEnabled=True
EventForwarderContainerAddress=carbonblack-event-forwarder
EventForwarderContainerPort=5744
5. Run the Event Forwarder docker container using this command:
   docker-compose -f event-forwarder.yml up -d

Results

Configuration is saved in data/integrations/event-forwarder.

• The Carbon Black EDR data folder is re-used
• If you encounter difficulties logging can be found in data/logs/event-forwarder directory and additional logging information for Event Forwarder is available by use thing this command: docker logs -f carbonblackevent-forwarder

Configure the cb-event-forwarder

1. If installing on a machine other than the EDR server:

   1. Create a new RabbitMQ user by executing the following commands as root on the EDR server:

   /usr/share/cb/cbrabbitmqctl add_user <username> <password>
   /usr/share/cb/cbrabbitmqctl set_user_tags <username> administrator
   /usr/share/cb/cbrabbitmqctl set_permissions -p / <username> ".*" ".*" ".*"
   

   2. Set the rabbit_mq_username and rabbit_mq_password variables in /etc/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder.conf to the credentials you used in the preceding step file. Also fill out the cb_server_hostname with the hostname or IP address where the EDR server can be reached.

2. If the cb-event-forwarder is forwarding events from a EDR cluster, the cb_server_hostname should be set to the hostname or IP address of the EDR primary node.

3. Ensure that the configuration is valid by running the cb-event-forwarder in Check mode: /usr/share/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder -check as root. If everything is OK, you will see a message starting with "Initialized output”. If there are any errors, those errors will be printed to your screen.

Configure EDR

Console Support

If you are using EDR 7.1.0 or greater and wish to use the EDR console to configure and operate the Event Forwarder, you will need to add the following setting to /etc/cb/cb.conf (on the primary node, if this is a cluster):

EventForwarderEnabled=True

after which you must restart services (or restart the cluster).

Event Publishing

By default, Cb publishes the feed.* and watchlist.* events over the bus (see the Events documentation for more information). If you want to capture raw sensor events or the binaryinfo.* notifications, you have to enable those features in /etc/cb/cb.conf:

• If you are capturing raw sensor events, you must set the EnableRawSensorDataBroadcast option to True.
• If you are capturing binary observed events you also need to edit the EnableSolrBinaryInfoNotifications option in /etc/cb/cb.conf and set it to True.
• If you would like feed hit events to include report titles, you must set the FeedHitLoadReportTitles option to True.

EDR needs to be restarted if any you change any variables in /etc/cb/cb.conf by executing /usr/share/cb/cbservice cb-enterprise restart.

If you are configuring the cb-event-forwarder on a EDR cluster, the EnableRawSensorDataBroadcast and/or EnableSolrBinaryInfoNotifications settings must be distributed to the /etc/cb/cb.conf configuration file on all minion nodes and the cluster stopped and started using the /usr/share/cb/cbcluster stop && /usr/share/cb/cbcluster start command.

Starting and Stopping the Service

CentOS 6.x

• To start the service: service cb-event-forwarder start
• To stop the service: service cb-event-forwarder stop

CentOS 7.x/8.x

• To start the service: systemctl start cb-event-forwarder
• To stop the service: systemctl stop cb-event-forwarder

Once you install the service, it is configured to start automatically on system boot.

Splunk

The EDR Event Forwarder can be used to export EDR events in a way easily configured for Splunk. You'll need to install and configure the Splunk TA to consume the EDR event data. We recommend using SPLUNK HEC, and configuring the event-forwarder to publish events as json to the Splunk HEC route (typically /services/collector). If the HEC input is configured to use dedicated channels, you must include a channel identifer as a URL-parameter in this route like /services/collector?channel=FE0ECFAD-13D5-401B-847D-77733BD77137

More information about configuring the Splunk TA can be found here More information about configuring the Splunk HEC input can be found here

QRadar

The EDR Event Forwarder can forward EDR events in the LEEF format to QRadar. To forward EDR events to a QRadar server:

1. Modify /etc/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder.conf to include udpout=<qradaripaddress>:<port> (NOTE: Port is usually 514)
2. Change the output format to LEEF in the configuration file: output_format=leef.
3. Change the output type to UDP in the configuration file: output_type=udp.

For more information on the LEEF format, see the Events documentation.

Logging & Diagnostics

The connector logs to the directory /var/log/cb/integrations/cb-event-forwarder. An example of a successful startup log:

2015/12/07 12:57:26 cb-event-forwarder version 3.0.0 starting
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Interface address 172.22.10.7
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Interface address fe80::20c:29ff:fe85:bcd0
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Configured to capture events: [watchlist.hit.# watchlist.storage.hit.# feed.ingress.hit.# 
feed.storage.hit.# feed.query.hit.# alert.watchlist.hit.# ingress.event.process ingress.event.procstart 
ingress.event.netconn ingress.event.procend ingress.event.childproc ingress.event.moduleload 
ingress.event.module ingress.event.filemod ingress.event.regmod binaryinfo.# binarystore.file.added]
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Initialized output: File /var/cb/data/event_bridge_output.json
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Diagnostics available via HTTP at http://cbtest:33706/debug/vars
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Starting AMQP loop
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Connecting to message bus...
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to watchlist.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to watchlist.storage.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to feed.ingress.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to feed.storage.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to feed.query.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to alert.watchlist.hit.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.process
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.procstart
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.netconn
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.procend
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.childproc
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.moduleload
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.module
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.filemod
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to ingress.event.regmod
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to binaryinfo.#
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Subscribed to binarystore.file.added
2015/12/07 12:57:26 Starting 4 message processors

In addition to the log file, the service starts an HTTP service for monitoring and debugging. The URL is available in the log file (see the “Diagnostics available” line above). The port is configurable through the http_server_port option in the configuration file.

The diagnostics are presented as a JSON formatted string. The diagnostics include operational information on the service itself, how long the service has been running, errors, and basic configuration information. An example output from the JSON status is shown below:

{
  "version": "3.0.0",
  "uptime": 145.617786697,
  "cmdline": [
    "/usr/share/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder",
    "/etc/cb/integrations/event-forwarder/cb-event-forwarder.conf"
  ],
  "connection_status": {
    "uptime": 145.471995845,
    "last_error_time": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "last_error_text": "",
    "last_connect_time": "2015-12-08T00:22:56.566600876-05:00",
    "connected": true
  },
  "error_count": 0,
  "input_event_count": 29,
  "memstats": {...},
  "output_event_count": 29,
  "output_status": {
    "type": "file",
    "format": "json",
    "file:/var/cb/data/event_bridge_output.json": {
      "file_name": "/var/cb/data/event_bridge_output.json",
      "last_open_time": "2015-12-08T00:22:56.430385291-05:00"
    }
  },
  "subscribed_events": [
    "watchlist.hit.#",
    "watchlist.storage.hit.#",
    "feed.ingress.hit.#",
    "feed.storage.hit.#",
    "feed.query.hit.#",
    "alert.watchlist.hit.#",
    "ingress.event.process",
    "ingress.event.procstart",
    "ingress.event.netconn",
    "ingress.event.procend",
    "ingress.event.childproc",
    "ingress.event.moduleload",
    "ingress.event.module",
    "ingress.event.filemod",
    "ingress.event.regmod",
    "binaryinfo.#",
    "binarystore.file.added"
  ]
}

Building from source

It is recommended to use the latest golang available on your target system - at the time of writing this is 1.13.x.

Set up your GOPATH, GOBIN, PATH environmental variables and make sure you have cloned the project into a directory structure in keeping with go's workspace guide.

Set GO111MODULE=on to activate optional module support. The project can be built using the provided makefile.

make build 

To build an RPM package, use make rpm. Make sure to set the RPM_OUTPUT_DIR environment variable to the location of your desired RPMBUILD directory; For instance if you set RPM_OUTPUT_DIR=/home/user the result will be located at /home/user/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.